


Keepsake

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [81]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Gen, Not The Mia Lives Verse, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: During a house move, Leo finds something of Mia's.





	Keepsake

**Author's Note:**

> warning: in this fic, Mia’s death hasn’t been undone, so please skip it if you prefer the usual Everybody Lives AU
> 
> written for Synth Recharge Challenge

Somehow, in the aftermath, it had ended up in Leo’s hands - a necklace, with an elegant, golden pendant. Mia’s.

For a long time he’d barely been able to look at it. Not because it reminded him of her: quite the opposite. He had no idea where Mia had got it, from whom, or why, or even when. Had she been given it during the period of time they’d been apart, when he’d left their haven with Max and Hester? Or was it a memento from the year he’d missed, languishing in a coma while his siblings tried to hold their world together?

Either way, it was from a part of Mia’s life that he knew nothing about. Worse - a part he would never know anything about. A reminder, dense and tangible and undeniable, that he had not known her as fully as she’d always known him.

So he had pushed it to the back of a drawer and tried to forget about it.

They kept Mia’s memory alive by other means. There were many late nights spent swapping stories, beseeching Max to project his memories onto a screen, now that Leo couldn’t do it himself. They’d watch her together in reverent silence, the crystal clear image of her lighting up the room, so vivid and inviting that Leo could almost forget he was watching the past.

There were quiet moments with Niska, when the pressure on her was particularly hard to bear - both of them wishing wordlessly that they had inherited more of Mia’s gentle wisdom, Leo’s forehead pressed against Niska’s in an attempt to lend her what strength he could offer.

Even when he was alone, he found himself looking up at the moon, as Mia had done so often, pretending that she was somewhere else, looking up at the same patch of sky. In this way, she lived still. Through them, through their memories and their love. Not through mysterious trinkets Leo had never even seen before her death.

He wanted to live in a way that would make Mia proud, and that meant facing up to things, mending things where he could. The rift between himself and Mattie was of his own making, he knew - and over the months following Basswood, Leo worked hard to show how sincerely he regretted what had passed between them, how little he expected from her, yet how much he was willing to give. By the time little Amelia was six months old, their relationship was stronger, surer than it had ever been. Even so, the prospect of moving in together was something that filled Leo with anxious dread.

Sophie and Toby presented themselves at the door of the house he had been sharing with Max, Gordon and Stanley, the Saturday before the move.

“We’re here to help,” Sophie proclaimed.

“Not because you have that much stuff,” Toby clarified, “But because Mattie doesn’t want you chickening out.”

“ _Me_ , chicken out?” Leo echoed, a weak attempt at mock disbelief. “Yeah, that’s…. fair.”

This earned him a playful shove from Toby as the two of them came past. Sophie stopped briefly to give Stanley a bear hug on her way to Leo’s room, but once she’d reported for duty she was a force to be reckoned with.

“It’s been a year since we last moved house, so this is overdue for her,” Toby quipped, making for the stairs with his first box. “Sophie _lives_ to pack.”

It was true, apparently, although mercifully Toby had been correct in assuming that Leo didn’t have many belongings to his name. He had never been a hoarder - years of living on the run had made him almost ascetic in that sense. It was foreign to him, this static life, where he didn’t have to buy a new burner phone every third week or try parked cars for faulty locks. He was glad Mattie would be furnishing their new flat with her own things, because his own barely filled this one room.

He emptied the chest of drawers into the last box, not paying much attention to what the items were. He wouldn’t even have noticed that the necklace had been left behind, had Sophie not discovered it right at the back of the drawer, while conducting her “final check” of the room.

She held it up, and the pendant spun lazily on its chain as she looked at it. “You left this,” she said. “It’s pretty.”

Leo stopped in his tracks, rested the box he was holding on a nearby empty shelf. “Yes,” he said, feeling a slight tug on his heart at the sight of it.

“Is it for Mattie?”

He considered the question. Could he give it to Mattie? He wasn’t the best at giving presents, and he had precious little else to offer her in the way of family heirlooms. But he wasn’t sure he could bear to see her wearing it every day, not when it was a symbol of everything he’d lost.

“No,” he said eventually, “It’s… it belonged to Mia.”

“Oh,” said Sophie, softly. She looked away from the necklace quickly, as though averting her gaze from something holy. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to leave it behind. It was right at the back of the drawer, nearly falling down the gap.”

Leo sat down on the bed, so that Sophie towered over him. He held out his hand, and she gently deposited the pendant there, letting the chain pour itself into his open palm. “Thank you,” he said. He gave a small, dry chuckle. “To tell you the truth, I don’t… This is the first time I’ve looked at it since the walk.”

Sophie nodded, though he didn’t see how she could possibly understand.

“I don’t know where she got it,” he explained. “Someone gave it to her, I think, since it’s old and she wouldn’t have had the money to buy an antique. I don’t know, maybe someone will come asking for it it one day. But until then, I just… keep it out of sight.”

When he looked up, he saw tears in Sophie’s eyes, and immediately felt bad for upsetting her. He’d forgotten, again, how close Mia had been to the family - that in Sophie’s eyes, he wasn’t Mattie’s boyfriend, first and foremost - he was Mia’s son.

“Sophie, could you do me a favour?” Leo asked. “Would you look after it for me? The way I am with things, I tend to push them away where I don’t have to look. I think you’d take better care of it. For Mia.”

Her eyes grew wider, the tears still pooling there, unshed. “Are you sure?” Sophie asked.

“Of course.”

He moved to give it to her, and she held out a hand.

“You could even wear it, if you wanted to.”

“It wouldn’t make you sad?”

He thought about it. Giving the necklace to Mattie would have been a solemn event, a memorial service all of its own. It would have reintroduced a weight between them, just when things had been getting easier and lighter. Somehow, giving it to Sophie didn’t seem the same - giving it to Sophie felt like something Mia might have done herself, lending it to the little girl just for the joy of seeing her parade it round.

“No, I think I’d like to see you wear it,” he said. “You don’t have to keep it on all the time, if you don’t want to, but I think… I think it’s meant to be worn.”

She smiled shyly at him, and he undid the clasp.

“Thank you,” she said, once he’d fastened it at the back. She turned back towards him and they shared a moment of quiet reflection, both thinking of Mia.

Then Sophie broke the silence abruptly. “The little ring in the box, though, _that’s_ going to be for Mattie, right?”

Leo spluttered. “How did you manage to see that?!”


End file.
